MW Enters Fourth Week of Conference Baseball

MWC Baseball Preview for 3/24/2016

So far weather has been the big winner in the MWC. I live just north of Denver and two hours away from Air Force. Tuesday it was near 70 degrees here and Wednesday we had a blizzard which shut down the Denver Airport and knocked out electricity in many places. My juice was out just short of 24 hours. Our furnace doesn't work during outages even though it's gas as it takes a fan to push the air all over and that keeps it from working when there is no electricity. Yep, it was a three dog night. Oh, you want baseball? Let's start with Air Force. Luckily, they're on the road in sunny (?) California. Yessir, they're having their problems too. I don't know if rain will cancel any games but, as an aside, the rain is sorely needed there; everywhere. The Falcons take on the Davis Aggies in non-conference play. Davis has always been a mystery to me. Just when I think they are going to turn a corner, they fall flat and this is one of those years. Not doing well and conference games are really tough on them as they are a member of the Big West where no prisoners are taken. Air Force might do well in this series. New Mexico is at the Aztecs and winter rain might be a problem but it ain't snow. If they play the games, New Mexico is riding high in the MWC now even if they just lost a donnybrook with Texas Tech. San Diego State is struggling. I don't know what's going on there as they were supposed to be pretty good this year. It hasn't happened. Fresno State travels to San Jose for their annual little tea party. I've been hoping the Spartans will turn it around and I'm slowly losing hope. The pitching is just not there and I hear one of their best hitters (Bautista) is done for the year. Crap! Fresno State has been playing Jekyll and Hyde so it'll be interesting to see who shows up for this series. Nevada gets out of the snow and goes down to the desert to take on the Rebels. Neither team is setting the world afire. Oh, did I say all these series start today as we enter the Easter weekend? Well, now you know.

New Mexico (5-1) at San Diego State (1-3)

The Lobos come off a sweep of San Jose State where the pitching came through. Two starters went deep into games and the hitting was mostly there. They may be peaking at the right time against less than stellar opposition. The Aztecs have yet to find their game and it will be tough to find it against the Lobos. You want offensive fireworks? This may be the series for you. The Lobos' Chris Devito has 5 home runs and Carl Stajduhar has 7 and I suspect that leads the conference.

Fresno State (4-2) at San Jose State (2-6)

The conference's best pitching against, if not the worst, close to it. The Dawgs boast five guys who are reliable starters and that is difficult as it's hard to find enough innings to keep them all busy. The Bulldogs are a bit challenged offensively but that may change against the Spartans. The Spartans boast one good starter and that's about it. The hitters have shown they can score but sometimes are a little deficient in situational hitting which can really hurt late in games. We'll see as this is a good rivalry series.

Air Force (10-4) at UC Davis (5-10)

Air Force can score and they have a few good arms that start so they are in pretty good shape in this OOC series. This was an easy writeup. A good team against a not so good team. Would you bet money on this? College kids? Really? Yeah, neither would I.

Nevada (1-4) at UNLV (3-3)

Two struggling teams and one of them has to come out with at least two wins. The Rebels have looked improved but I'm not convinced. Nevada has looked poor but also not convinced that they are as bad as their record. Strange weekend for a fairly weak baseball conference. This is an in-state rivalry series so records mean little.